


The Bird and the Earth

by ASilentWren



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Fluff without Plot, Halla - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:02:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26743318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ASilentWren/pseuds/ASilentWren
Summary: Lavellan has been sneaking out of Skyhold. Cullen doesn't know how, and he doesn't know where she goes when she does it, but he is going to find out. Even if it kills him.It honestly might.Alternate title: Cullen and the Terrible, Wonderful, No Good, Very Nice Day Off. This is literally five thousand words of shameless fluff, so don't say I didn't warn you.
Relationships: Female Inquisitor/Cullen Rutherford
Kudos: 28





	The Bird and the Earth

It happened once a week, more or less. Not on any schedule Cullen could see - not every ninth day, not every Saturday, nothing he could reliably follow, but every six or seven days, providing nothing calamitous was happening, she disappeared. Just… disappeared. Gone from Skyhold entirely. It didn’t matter how early he rose, intending to track her down; he always found her chamber empty, her bed cold. 

It wasn’t something to panic about, he didn’t think. She would usually turn up by early afternoon, pink-cheeked and grinning, ready to work. Obviously, no one was kidnapping her on a regular basis. Not that anyone could. An assassin had tried to infiltrate Skyhold once, and that ended with an arrow in the throat. She hadn’t shot it, mind. She had simply taken an arrow, in her fist, and stabbed him in the throat. In the dining hall. Ghoulish.

So it wasn’t a matter of safety. The Inquisitor could take care of herself. It was probably something private, and Cullen knew he should let her have it. She deserved a few hours of peace once in a while, away from the demands of the keep. He should let it go. He should give his commander space and trust her decisions. 

But he had to know. 

It wouldn’t be an easy thing to discover a secret Evie meant to keep. She had an unusual knack for it. And, infuriatingly, she had enlisted help. 

“No idea, big guy,” Bull had said, long legs draped comically over the edge of the Inquisitor’s throne. “She could be anywhere. Have you tried her room?”

“Yes,” Cullen said, through perfectly gritted teeth. “She should be here. Since you are here instead, I have to assume you have some idea of where she might actually be.”

Bull shrugged his massive shoulders, picking at his teeth with a jeweled knife. “Can’t help you.” 

“Can’t help-”

“Check the kitchens, maybe.” 

“Sera is in the kitchens,” Cullen said. “Which I checked after the library, where Dorian told me to check the kitchens.” 

“Huh.” Bull looked at him with the worst attempt at feigned innocence Cullen had ever seen. “Guess we have a mystery on our hands, don’t we, big guy?”

They certainly did. 

It went on for months. Cullen became a man obsessed. But Evelyn was too clever by half, and she outwit him at every step. Placing spies among the smallfolk of the keep didn’t help. Their loyalty to the Inquisitor was absolute - something Cullen was gratified to see, but it was still aggravating. He couldn’t even bribe the stablemaster to talk. He once went so far as to camp out in the stairwell outside her chamber, hoping to catch her in the act. A desperate maneuver, and a pointless one. She simply stepped on him and went down to breakfast.

At one point, he had been frenzied enough to just outright ask her. The Inquisitor only looked stupidly up at him and pointed out a passing cloud in the shape of a cow. So that approach was out. 

He may never have learned her secret at all, had it not been for the dumb luck of peering over the right parapet at the right moment. 

It had to be four o’clock, or earlier. The sky was still fully black. Cullen sat in his office, nursing a pounding headache. He had been scratching out missives by firelight for hours, and there was still so much to be done. So much. He was jittery. His heart fluttered unsteadily and despite the chill, a bead of sweat ran down the back of his neck. Paranoia clawed at the corners of his mind. It was a bad night. 

When he couldn’t stand it a moment more, he stood. Stretched. His spine cracked dully under his armor. A walk, he told himself. Take a walk, get yourself together, and get back to it. 

The nights at Skyhold were never fully quiet. A keep didn’t operate that way. There were always people staggering in or out of the tavern, always the low clamor of the smallfolk going to bed or getting up, the snorts of the livestock, the clang of armor being dropped or put on. But it was quiet enough. Cullen could hear himself think. He drew a deep breath, savoring the sharp mountain air. It cleared his head, sometimes. Not always. 

He probably wouldn’t have seen her at all if it hadn’t been for that hand of hers. But there, across the keep, a glint of green. Cullen blinked. 

“Oh,” he said. “Oh, that absolute little goblin.” 

The light flicked in and out of his vision, and Cullen realized she was climbing. She was climbing straight up the wall. No wonder the man he had posted at the drawbridge hadn’t seen a thing. Aggravation flared in Cullen’s stomach, and he made a snap decision. Today, he was going to find out where Evie went. 

But first he had to catch up to her. 

If she was climbing over the bloody walls, he had to assume wherever she was going, she went on foot. Fair enough. He couldn’t outrun her, but he could maybe cut her off. He took for the staircase, flying for the back exit, down in the catacombs. She didn’t look as if she intended to leave by the bridge, and that could only mean she was headed deeper into the mountains. The climb would slow her down. He could cut her off. He could. 

Maybe. 

Luck was with him. For the first time in his life, Rutherford Cullen got the drop on the Inquisitor. He had the immense satisfaction of leaning against the trunk of an aged hemlock, arms crossed, as Evie lightly dropped the last ten feet into the snow. 

“Can’t sleep?” He asked.

That was a mistake. 

Evie reacted on impulse. She moved like a cat, fast and focused, and Cullen found himself not leaning against the tree, but pinned to it, with a knife at his throat. 

“Evie!” 

“Cullen?” She blinked up at him, the light of her mark curving around the underside of her face. Her eyes were cartoonishly wide. “Fenedhis iasa! Bastard!” 

She released him, swearing colorfully. Evie wasn’t strong, but that didn’t make her any less dangerous. Cullen rubbed lightly at his throat. He had probably deserved that, to be perfectly honest. 

“What in the seven blackened hells are you doing skulking around out here in the dark like a common prowler?” she demanded.

“Me?” Cullen half laughed. “I saw you scampering up the wall of the keep, and I’m the prowler?”

Evie made a frustrated noise. 

“I’ve caught you,” he said, trying not to sound overly smug. “I’ve finally caught you. Now, once and for all, where do you go when you leave Skyhold?”

“Ahg.” She was frowning. Worried. Cullen couldn’t have that. He was about to apologize when she jabbed him lightly in the chest with one narrow fingertip. “If I show you, I need your total confidence, okay? You can’t tell anyone. Not Josie, not Leliana, no one.” 

Well. That wasn’t what he had been expecting. But if Evie needed something from him, he would find a way to give it. “Of course. You can trust me with anything.” 

He meant it. 

“Fine. But there are rules.”

“Rules?”

“Rules.” She counted them off on her fingers. “We’ve established the first one. Your complete and unwavering confidence.”

“Which you always have.” 

Her lips twitched in a smile. “Don’t distract me by being noble. Two, you do whatever I say. I mean it. This is important, and if you want to see, you need to follow my instructions.” 

The curiosity was unbearable, and Cullen probably would have agreed to anything she asked, but to follow her was no condition at all. “I give you my word.” 

“Fine. Third, no complaining about needing to get back to work. We’ve got a long walk ahead of us. This takes a few hours, at least.”

This was a more difficult condition. He had only intended a short break. There was a pile of requisitions he needed to sign off on, he still needed to review the candidates for the keep’s new falcon master, and that was to say nothing of the stack Josie was sure to drop on his desk at dawn. But Evie gave him a ferocious look - she was deadly serious about this - and, steeling his resolve, Cullen nodded. 

“Okay,” she said. “Remember, I’m trusting you.” 

If she had been looking for a way to galvanize his heart for whatever she had in store, those words were it. She could lead him directly into Corypheus’ bedchamber, and he would uphold his conditions. He would be worthy of her trust. 

“Come on. This way.” 

***

Evie hadn’t been joking about the walk.

Cullen was reminded of the long march to Skyhold. They put one foot ahead of the other, traipsing through the snow towards nothing Cullen could see. He wasn’t even sure how Evie determined where they were going. There was no trail. No path. She winked in and out of snow banks like a rabbit, quick and sure, though Cullen was well aware she would be faster without him. 

“How are you navigating?” he asked. 

“I know the way,” she said, simply. 

“Yes, I can see that. But how did you learn the way? I’m not asking where we’re going,” he said quickly, as her eyes turned to him in warning. “Only how you found whatever-it-is in the first place.” 

“Elves navigate differently,” she said, after a moment. “We use stars and winds, like you, but we also use birds.”

“Birds?” 

“Yeah. You’d be surprised how reliable it is, once you take the time to get to know the local patterns. Birds know everything. They know where to find shelter in the coldest part of the mountain, where most predators aren’t willing to follow, and they know the fastest way back down to the verdant parts of the forest.”

As she said it, Cullen realized that the snowpack had been thinning for at least half an hour, and they were now marching through a layer thin enough for wildflowers to poke out and wink at the sky. 

“Birds,” he marveled. “Could you work with some of the unit captains on that? A new method of navigation could be a real advantage in-”

Evie gave him a look. Cullen snapped his mouth shut. No work. 

She had led him down the mountain to a little green thicket. The forest grew warmer around them, thick with birdsong. The sky had softened, then faded, and was now the dusty pink of dawn. This was what she got up to? Nature walks in the valley?

“You know, you didn’t have to hide this from me,” he said. “You’re more than entitled to take some time for yourself. Everyone understands.”

“Cullen,” she said, turning around to face him. Her eyes were sparking with humor. “Honey. Shut up.” 

He shut up. 

It was another half hour before they got to wherever it was they were going, or close enough that Evie motioned for him to stop. The world was the deep gold of full dawn, and for a moment, Cullen was lost in the way the light seemed to greet her, claim her, kiss her. She was a pillar of golden fire, pale and radiant.

“Okay,” she said. “Here’s good, I think. Take off your armor.”

“I beg your entire pardon?” Cullen spluttered. She grinned at him with too many teeth. 

“You’re too heavy. No plate, no chain. Leather only, but I’d say drop that, too. You won’t need it today.”

“A knight needs his armor always,” Cullen said stiffly, but after a long moment of hesitation, his hands went to his throat and began working at the fastenings of his cloak. 

“Drop the sword, too.”

Cullen stiffened. “Inquisitor-”

“No,” she said. “Not here. Okay? I’m not the Inquisitor here. I’m not the Herald, I’m not a hero, I’m not anything. I’m just Evie.” There was something so naked in her eyes, something that pleaded with him. Cullen swallowed hard. 

“Evie,” he tried again. “I’m not leaving my sword.” 

She shrugged. “Drop the sword or turn back. They won’t let you approach them if you’re armed like that.” 

They? 

“A small knife is fine.” To his surprise, Evie was also pulling off her armor. She was only dressed in light leathers, with a thin shawl, light boots and her bow, but she dropped all of it, setting it gently beside the trunk of a fir tree. Cullen had never seen her take her hands off her bow outside the keep. “They don’t mind me bringing my quiver, but, well. They’re not used to your kind. Best not to press our luck.” 

Against his better judgement, Cullen pulled the scabbard from his waist. He undid his armor, piece by piece, dropping it with a clank. His heart pounded raggedly in his throat. The morning breeze met his skin, and a shiver skipped through him. He felt… vulnerable. In a more complex way than the anxiety of attack. He wasn’t sure he liked it. 

At last, Evie stood before him, hands on her hips, a smile playing at her pink, perfect lips, barefoot and glorious. The linen of her shirt rippled around her in the breeze. The only thing she had kept with her was her dagger and a little satchel of roughspun slung over her shoulder. Cullen straightened, practically in his plainclothes, and cleared his throat awkwardly. 

“Can I keep my boots, at least?” he asked. 

“I’d recommend it, yeah.” Evie grinned. “Come on. We have to be very quiet from here, okay? Watch where you’re putting your feet, no sudden movements.” 

She bent in a crouch and began moving through the trees so silently, it was as if she had simply disappeared. Cullen ambled after her, trying to mimic her movements. He sounded like an elephant by comparison. 

They moved at a grueling pace. Step, pause. Step, pause. The forest grew thicker, but Cullen could see no other changes. He had just started to wonder if this entire thing had been the world’s longest, most complex prank setup imaginable, when Evie stopped dead, crouched behind a rock, and motioned for Cullen to do the same. 

“There,” she breathed, nearly soundless.

He looked. He saw nothing. Up ahead was a bit of a clearing, a lush little meadow dotted with aster, but that was all. Then, motion. A glimpse of something pale. A flash of an antler. 

“Stay here,” Evie hissed. “Don’t move. Not a muscle, until I tell you to.” 

She rose. 

It wasn’t the first time Cullen had marveled at her grace. It was hard not to. But that morning, she moved like she was part of the forest, a blazing dryad passing through shafts of sunlight and shadow. She moved into the center of the meadow, and waited. And waited. And just as Cullen was becoming aware of the ache in his back, a massive Halla emerged from the tree line, white and gleaming. 

Cullen’s breath caught. 

He had seen Halla before. From a distance, hooked up to an aravel, or a wild herd passing through the Exalted Plains. He had seen them in carvings, in illustrations, had even seen their shadows in the magics cast by elvish mages, but he had never seen a Halla like this. It stood nearly eight feet tall from toes to antler tips. It moved with an unearthly grace, making even Evie look clumsy and slow. The sun seemed to fall more brightly on its back. Rather than falling silent, birds sang more loudly. It was as if the forest opened to greet him; as if he were its lord. 

The Halla passed through the clearing, directly to Evie. To Cullen’s astonishment, the magnificent beast bent his enormous head and pressed his nose into her hands. It was greeting her. Evie wrapped her slender arms around the Halla’s neck, eyes slid shut in joy. The creature lipped at her, playfully, as a horse might do, and Evie laughed. 

“Come on,” she called back to Cullen. “Slowly. Be respectful. This is their home. We’re just visitors.” 

Cullen stood, and found he was shaking. He swallowed heavily. His steps were leaden. He remembered, suddenly, wildly, his mother’s voice at the hearth of their cottage, telling him stories of the spirits the Halla had stolen away to the realm of the dark gods. Stories meant to frighten human children. Evie gazed out at him with even, trusting eyes, and he walked into the clearing. 

The Halla stared down at him impassively. The heat of his breath caught on the side of Cullen’s face. Neither moved. Was the Halla… was it judging him? He wouldn’t have thought Halla had that kind of intelligence, and would have dismissed stories to the contrary as cultural legends, but there was wisdom in those ancient eyes. This was no simple beast. 

At last, the Halla snorted and turned from Cullen. Evie broke into a brilliant smile. From all around them, smaller Halla began nose their way into the clearing, watching Cullen nervously. Evie dug in the satchel and pulled out bundles of carrots, apples and fistfuls of nuts, all snitched from the kitchen larders. The Halla began pressing in to get their share. 

“You can pet them, if they’ll let you,” Evie said. A doe was lipping at her elbow, and she rubbed the beautiful creature behind the ear. “They won’t hurt you.” 

“I’m not worried about them hurting me,” Cullen said. He would be dead in the ground before he admitted to his brief moment of childhood apprehension. “How in the name of the Maker did you find a wild herd of Halla?”

“Either accident or luck, I guess. I was exploring the woods just to get out of the castle for a while. Don’t be mad,” she said, glancing quickly to him. “I wasn’t trying to trick you. I just have a hard time living behind stone walls.” 

So that was it. It wasn’t something Cullen had considered, but he could see now that it was a stupid oversight. Of course Evie would have a hard time adapting to life inside a castle. He had assumed she had needed to escape the pressures of her role as Inquisitor, and that was part of it, he was sure, but it had never even occurred to him to ask if there was anything he could do to make her feel more at home in a new way of life. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice a low rumble. A young buck was looking up at him with curious eyes, and Cullen let his fingertips brush carefully over the crown of the beast’s head. “I haven’t considered your needs as fairly as I should have.”

Evie snorted. It was a bright, indelicate sound. “Of all the fool things to apologize for. It’s not your fault I start feeling cooped up. It’s no one’s fault, except maybe Corypheus.” 

“As your tactical advisor, I should be more proactive about-”

“Cullen,” Evie said, sweetly. “Shut up.”

He shut up. 

She passed him a handful of nuts. “Start ingratiating yourself. They’re especially wild for pecans.” 

She was right. The smaller Halla went from curiously nosing at him to pressing in, straining for a nibble. Cullen found himself smiling. They were friendlier than he could have imagined. Maybe Evie’s presence put them at ease. It did for him. 

“Okay,” she said. “I think they’re on board.” 

“On board with what?” Cullen asked. He was stroking a doe’s long, beautiful neck, beaming. 

Evie looked at him with the sweet, sparking, semi-mad look in her eye that Cullen knew meant absolutely nothing good. “Do you want to ride a Halla?”

Cullen froze. “Sorry?”

“I normally ride the big guy, here, but I don’t think anyone else would be strong enough to carry you. He’ll take good care of you.”

“Evie,” Cullen said, “I cannot ride a Halla.”

“Not with that attitude.” 

“I’m a Templar,” he laughed. The very idea was absurd. “Evie, I’m a human. Isn’t this some kind of… I don’t know, serious cultural violation?”

“You’ve been spending too much time with Solas. If a Halla doesn’t want to carry you, he won’t. They’re not beasts of burden, and they’re not mystical spirits. They’re intelligent, independent creatures, like you or me.” She smiled, so warm and trusting it made Cullen dizzy. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but if you really want to know what I do when I sneak out, here’s your chance.” 

Cullen hesitated, eyeing the massive Halla. “Do you think he would let me?”

“I do.” Evie looked up at the buck with naked adoration. “He likes you, I think. That’s a big deal. Halla are excellent judges of character.”

“I believe it.” The old Halla seemed as if he knew everything, and had seen the world grow from seed. 

“They’re not horses,” Evie said firmly. “Don’t try to treat him like one. Don’t try to steer. Don’t use your heels. Grip with your thighs and don’t grab him around the neck. Don’t grab his antlers if you’re interested in living to old age. He’s in control. He knows where we’re going, and he’ll take us there. You won’t fall if he doesn’t want you to, and if he wants you off, well. There’s really nothing you can do to prevent it.”

“Excellent,” Cullen said. “Nothing like a good concussion.” 

“Be nice and you’ll have nothing to worry about.”

Cullen was always nice. 

Evie gestured him over. “Palm up, like this. There you go.” She directed him to lay his hand flush against the old Halla’s neck, then trace slowly along the lines of his side, up to his shoulder blade. The Halla shifted his weight, but otherwise stood still. “Okay. I think we’re good. Hoist yourself up as lightly as you can.”

Cullen was not light on his feet, as a rule. It ran counter to all of his training. Templars were extensions of the earth, immovable. Even without his armor, he struggled with the concept of quick, easy movements, but he did his best. He was too hesitant on his first attempt - the Halla backed up, nearly bucked, and Cullen pulled away. 

“Easy,” Evie said, low and soothing. Cullen wasn’t sure which of them she was talking to. “Easy. Take it slow.” 

It went better the second time. With one decisive motion, he hauled himself smoothly atop the Halla’s back. The buck danced forward, feeling it out, but finally stilled. He had decided that Cullen could stay. Evie lit up like the sun itself. 

“Good. Put your hands there, on his shoulder blades - no, don’t grip. Lay them flat. Perfect. Your back’s too straight, you need to lean in to the line of his body. If you’re too rigid, you’ll fall right off.” 

“I’ve never been unseated,” Cullen said mildly; not that he was insulted, or anything, but he did consider himself an accomplished rider.

Evie grinned. “It’s not the same. Trust me. You have to stay loose to ride a Halla. He’ll feel it if you’re tense. You need to be part of each other.” 

Cullen tried. He slumped lower, almost flush with the beast, and found he could hear the Halla’s strong, steady heartbeat.

“Good. Very good. Gripping with your thighs? Okay. Think you can hang on?”

Cullen didn’t answer. He honestly wasn’t sure. 

“Excellent,” Evie said, as if he had. A glorious doe was by her side - the old buck’s mate, maybe? She gave the beautiful thing a little nuzzle before leaping so lightly onto her back, Cullen wondered if the Halla even felt it. “Let’s go!” 

They went. 

It was nothing like riding a horse. It was as similar to that as walking was to flying. Cullen’s breath left him immediately. The forest flashed past, blurring tree and rock and sky. He bent low and saw the sense in it. You didn’t ride a Halla, you let them carry you. They were inherently different acts. 

Evie was in front, sunlight glinting off the fire of her hair. Cullen caught only glimpses of her. They moved through the forest almost without sound, Cullen, the Inquisitor, and the entire herd of Halla. Every hoofbeat hit precisely, muffled by moss or heather or soft-packed earth. It was unreal. 

He wanted to ask where they were going, or how they would get back, or just call out her name, but his words were lost on the wind. He was almost as silent as the Halla. 

It was hard to say how long they were running, or how much ground they covered. Part of him was memorizing terrain, thinking tactically and tucking details away for future plans, but the longer they ran, the more the thoughts began to slip from him. The steel-edged focus he carried with him began to dull, replaced by the rhythm of the Halla’s hooves and shafts of sunlight punching through the canopy. It was… simple. 

The herd began to slow, then came to a stop just before the tree line. Evie rolled lightly off the back of her Halla, and Cullen followed clumsily suit. She was wind-tossed and grinning, eyes bright, color high. 

“So?” she asked. 

Cullen shook his head for a moment. It was all he could do. He had lost his words somewhere in the forest. 

“Is that a good kind of shell shock, or bad?”

“Good,” he managed at last. “Very good.” 

“You see that?” She leaned in, eyes fixed on him. 

“What?” 

“That’s your sense of adventure.”

Cullen laughed. The sound seemed off, throaty and unfamiliar, bigger without bouncing off stone walls. “I am extremely adventurous, Madame.” 

“Is that so?” 

He drew himself a little taller. “Of course. I’ve led armies, traveled the world, gone drinking with Bull. I am full of adventure.”

“And not stuffy at all, right?” 

“No one has ever, in my life, called me stuffy.” 

Cullen didn’t make a lot of jokes, and it was extremely satisfying to see one land. His laugh might have sounded strange, but Evie’s was like birdsong, or the wind through the trees. It was an extension of the woods themselves. 

“Well, good,” she said, “because we’re about to do something very adventurous.”

Cullen stared at her. “There’s more?” How could there possibly be more?

Evie gestured for him to follow her, and she led them out of the tree line, into the open. Cullen realized it wasn’t another meadow or clearing, but a cliff face. It led thirty feet straight down to the most intensely blue little lake he had ever seen. 

“No,” he said immediately. “Absolutely not. You are too valuable to take a pointless risk like that.” 

“It’s perfectly safe,” Evie said. She was draping her bag across a helpful Halla, and bent to kiss the buck’s nose. She peeled off her shirt and stuffed it in with the snacks; she was more than half naked, and Cullen had to look away as if he’d been burned. “I’ve done this a dozen times.” 

“You’ve been sneaking off to go cliff diving?” Cullen was aghast. 

“Cliff diving, Halla riding, the usual.” She arched her eyebrows at him. “You trust me, right?”

Of course he did. Completely. But this was a bit beyond the pale. “You know there are entire kingdoms moving to kill you, right? Armies numbering in the thousands? You’re going to end up doing their job for them.” 

She was backing towards the cliff face. Cullen’s pulse quickened. “You might want to take your boots off.” 

“Evie-!” 

He couldn’t stop her. She turned, broke into a run, and leapt. Cullen scrambled after her, but he was snatching at empty air. Her narrow frame cut through the sky like a knife, and she hit the water feet first. A heartbeat passed. Then another. And to Cullen’s most unbearable relief, she bobbed to the surface, a mane of dark red hair floating around her. 

“You’re horrible,” he called. 

“I know! I’m sorry!” He didn’t think she was sorry. “But it’s completely safe, I promise! Jump!” 

There was nothing for it. Cullen peeled his boots off and kicked them aside, curses clenched between his teeth. Now that she was down there, he couldn’t very well leave her unprotected. Crazed, fool woman, mad creature, absolutely unreasonable-

“Cullen!” she sang out. “You can do it!” 

Cullen took a deep breath. 

He would follow her anywhere. 

He jumped, and regretted it instantly. Cullen didn’t belong in the air. He was of the rock and the valley; he was the root, not the canopy. The world fell away from under him, and Cullen realized, all at once, that Evelyn Lavellan was the bright, hot center of his universe. He would kill for her. He would die for her. The foundation he stood upon was not the Inquisition, or the Templars, or even the earth itself; it was her. It was all her. Alone, in the sky, there was still her. Sharp, bright eyes, bloodied blades, woodsmoke and teasing words. She was the air he drew. She was the blood in his veins. She was the wind, and the stars, and birdsong and sunlight, the goddess and the Maker and the thread in the fabric of everything. 

She was the only real thing he had ever seen. 

Cullen hit the water like a rock, changed forever. 

She was laughing by the time he surfaced, and it was the single sweetest thing Cullen had ever heard. He swam to her, alight with love, and caught her mouth with his. 

Evie was surprised. He could feel it in the line of her body. But she melted into him, her arms circling his neck, her torso fitting perfectly against his. He kissed her, and kissed her, screaming silently that she was all. 

“Well damn, Commander,” she said, breathless. “You’re a wild one after all.” 

He shook his head, pressing his face into the curve of her neck. “No. I’m not. I’m dull, and steady, and I’ve spent most of my life bound by duty. But I will follow you. I will always follow you. You are my duty, now. You are what binds me.”  
Her fingertips were pinpricks of light along his back. Her flesh was fire under his hands. He would never let her go again, he vowed. She would simply never again leave his arms. There was nothing else to be done. 

“Hey, so,” Evie said, “this water is getting kind of cold, so-”

Without a word, Cullen swam for shore, Evie in tow. The shore was already warm from the midmorning sun, and Evie stretched along the sand, grinning up at him. 

“Are you all right?” he asked. His voice was heavy and low, thick with love. “You didn’t hurt yourself?”

“No,” Evie said. Her thumb traced his cheekbone. “I’m fine. I told you, it’s safe.”

He kissed her again. And again. 

“You okay?” Evie asked. “Not that I’m complaining, mind you.” 

“Yes.” He pressed his lips to her forehead, right along the center of her tattoos. “Yes, Evie. I am excellent. But will you do something for me?” 

“Anything,” she breathed, lips curved up so sweetly. 

“The next time you jump off a cliff, you need to give me more warning. A grace period. Is that fair?” 

Evie laughed and pulled him to her. The Halla herd had taken a less direct route down to the lakeside, and they were milling around them, grazing and dozing. The young buck she had entrusted with her bag appeared at her side, and she tickled his ears in thanks. 

“So, this is what you do when you slip away,” Cullen said. 

“Yep,” Evie said. “This is my big secret. Feel better?”

“You know, I do.” He smiled. “I know this is important to you, and I won’t invade your alone time-”

“I’ll meet you by the back entrance the next time I go. If you can keep up.” 

Cullen wasn’t positive he could keep up with Evelyn. He wasn’t convinced anyone could, really. But he would try. He would spend every day, every breath the Maker saw fit to give him, trying to keep up. He kissed her, and in it was a vow. Cullen would follow her always. 

To the end of everything. 

They turned up at Skyhold well past noon. The keep was in a state - Josie was probably going to murder Cullen in his sleep that night, and he had to accept that - but it hadn’t burned down. An afternoon away hadn’t left the world to crumble. Evie was wind-whipped and grinning, leaves stuck in her hair, and Cullen knew he didn’t look much different.

She pulled him to her the moment their feet hit the stone floor of Skyhold. She kissed him, her mouth so firm on his, so sure, that something in Cullen turned to mist. Then she winked, turned, and sprinted, off to make up for her hours away. 

Cullen went straight to his chamber and fell into bed. The work would still be there tomorrow.


End file.
